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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Just don't pay any attention to him.”

That was quite a dose to take. It was a big speech, you remember. It was not revolutionary, you know-- it was John L. Lewis showing off.

Interviewer:

But you don't do that at the expense of the President.

Perkins:

You do if you think you are better than anybody else on earth. The other miners felt terribly about it. Oh, they were embarrassed to death.

Interviewer:

This was the beginning of the Phil Murray business, too.

Perkins:

Well, just about, yes. Murray never said that to me, because he was very loyal to Lewis, but other members of the high command of the United Mine Workers said to me, “What was John ever thinking of? What a thing for John to say-- oh, how terrible”--you know, that kind of thing. “Oh, awful, oh he shouldn't have said it, he shouldn't do a thing like that.”

Of course, the truth if it is, it gave the world the appearance that John L. Lewis was throwing down the gauntlet, that he was going to have open battle and warfare with the President, that he was going to take his United Mine Workers into a sort of civil war--really! I mean, there were some excited people who thought that was what he meant to do.





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